Prize Scholar: Jonas Hertel

If a life would be filled with constant, excruciating, and uncompensated pain, this gives one, by itself, a moral reason not to create it. But are there moral reasons to create lives just because they would be happy? Proponents of the procreation symmetry say ‘yes’. Defenders of the procreation asymmetry say ‘no’. Who is right? This is one of the questions that I aim to answer in my DPhil thesis on population ethics, the area of ethics concerned with decisions that affect who is born and how many people are born. Many find the asymmetry intuitively compelling. It is, however, difficult to defend. If there are moral reasons to make people happy, why are there not also moral reasons to create happy people? 

My research connects with fundamental questions about the nature of morality, for example, whether morality is about promoting the good or instead about avoiding the bad. Moreover, it is of practical importance, not solely for one's personal procreative choices, but also for decisions that influence population size on a larger scale – decisions taken by national governments or international organisations. In particular, the question of whether the asymmetry is true seems to have implications for the strength of our moral reasons to avoid human extinction. The number of happy people that might live in the future is vast. This consideration might generate strong moral reasons to avoid human extinction – if the procreation asymmetry is false and we have reasons to create people just because they would be happy. If, on the other hand, the procreation asymmetry is true, then our reasons to avoid human extinction might be significantly weaker. 

I am grateful for the support and intellectually stimulating environment that Merton provides for my research, and I am delighted to be part of such a vibrant academic community.